Keep Hope Alive

I have dubs of Freddie Foxxx's Crazy Like a Foxxx and Young Zee's Musical Meltdown, and even Crustified Dibbs' Night of the Bloody Apes. I have original CD copies of 8-Off and Champ MC's albums, an EP of tracks off Omniscience's Elektra album, and I was able to download SuperNatural's Natural Disasters off of emusic.com. DWG Records pressed up classic, unreleased material by Phill Most Chill and Godfather Don. Ill Bizkits, Mikey D & the LA Posse and Ultimate Force's old albums eventually got released, only a decade late. Even Serch finally released (albeit as mp3 only - boo! Hiss!) the tracks he recorded with Pete Nice for the unfinished Ichibod's Cranium record... So, why couldn't it happen?

That album cover scan you're looking at ran in February 1995, claiming to be available on Like Records through Red Distribution. Home Team's (the ultra-backpacker duo that put out the delightful Live Via Satellite From Saturn album, original Poison Clan member Debonaire and his cousin Drugz) infamously unreleased Malignant Graffiti. The copy reads, "Pick it up! Hometeam is back with their new album 'Malignant Graffiti'." The catalog numbers are XR-213-1 for the vinyl, XR-213-2 for the CD and XR-213-4 for the tape (kinda makes you wonder what XR-213-3 was meant to be, doesn't it?). It's listed with a bunch of other Luke Records projects, all of which were released right around the time of this ad, though some - like Christmas At Luke's Sex Shop - were rather limited. This suggests to me that the album was finished and just about to be released before it was pulled (it shows up in various music catalogs all the time, but of course stores can never fulfill the order... go ahead and try it. I have; it's fun); so there has to be a copy out there somewhere. Something stored in Luke Records' vaults if not actually distributed press release copies. So, come on somebody. Dig it out and leak it, already!

...By the way, the entire page is black and white, so it's reasonable to guess the proper album cover would've actually been in color.

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind stumbling upon however much was recorded for Biz Markie's Remember Me? on Tommy Boy and Craig G's Return Of the Seventh Letter on Scotti Bros. Records either. And on yet another related note, have a look at my old post on Pudgee's King of New York album, and scroll all the way down to the bottom. I just uncovered a little bit more info and updated the post today.

Tags: Home Team